"Full Circle" was meant to be my first painting completed for a joint exhibition at Bridlington Spa with Merice Ewart Marshall in October 2014 . Merice of course, happens to be my missus and the exhibition is called 'Double Vision' to reflect our different perspectives on life and art in particular. Although it is a painting of the North Yorkshire Moors I called it "Full Circle". Why? Well, when I first started to paint this was my subject - the wild grandeur of the moors. So it was nice to revisit in watercolour so to speak. Whether it is because of all the happy memories associated with the moors especially the excitement of first discovering the joys of watercolour, or just the fact that it is still such an extraordinarily beautiful place to be - I quite like the painting.But there's a snag - it is too large. After a lot of thought we have decided on a format for the exhibition and this 30" x 22" painting is simply too big to fit in with our plans. What to do?I have a good artist friend who never wastes a painting. Even if it has turned out nowhere near how he wanted it to, he doesn't give up. He always finds some section worth salvaging and ruthlessly crops out the bad. That got me thinking - perhaps "Full Circle" can be cropped to fit in with our design. But I didn't want to start cutting bits off the paper....and thanks to the joys of modern technology I didn't have to! I just altered it digitally to fit in with 'Double Vision' requirements. Would you like to see it trimmed down?

"Full Circle" - cropped

I was surprised how much I could crop and still retain the essence of the painting...or have I? It's difficult isn't it and if you have any thoughts I'd be very happy to hear them.Just for a bit of fun I repeated the experiment with three other paintings:

What you think? Let me assure you that no paintings were harmed in the making of this blog and I have no intention of taking scissors to any of them....or have I?

I think cropping usually improves a painting as it concentrates the eye to looking at what is important

Reply

Glenn Marshall

23/1/2014 03:10:59 pm

I would agree with you Anne but there are exceptions. Of the three above for instance, I think only one is enhanced - the middle one Forest Light - the others lose their large scale by cropping. But it is a reminder that sometimes when things don't turn out quite right, all is not necessarily lost.